Thursday, January 07, 2021

105. What a small word


 This may not be the first post in which I take a look at “small words with big meanings”, but I think it is a conflicting aspect of use and, since I’m interested in my students’ healthy performance, I take the liberty to adapt a long article from BBC World Culture, written by Hélène Schumacher and published on January 1st, 2021. The whole title: The most commonly-used word in English might only have three letters – but it packs a punch. You can find the full version here: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200109-is-this-the-most-powerful-word-in-the-english-language 

Now, why would I undertake such a task?

I think there’s a reason to it, and it has to do with the little time a teacher has at his or her disposal in class for such a complicated task (if I already “categorize it as “complicated”, this does mean that it’s not easy at all to take the rules of use for THE to class, is it?).

So this is an abbreviated version. Fortunately, there will be some reactions.

 

 ‘The’. It’s omnipresent; we can’t imagine English without it. But it’s not much to look at. It isn’t descriptive, evocative or inspiring. Technically, it’s meaningless. And yet this bland and innocuous-seeming word could be one of the most potent in the English language.

 ‘The’ tops the league tables of most frequently used words in English, accounting for 5% of every 100 words used. “‘The’ really is miles above everything else,” says Jonathan Culpeper, professor of linguistics at Lancaster University. But why is this? The answer is two-fold, according to the BBC Radio 4 programme Word of Mouth. George Zipf, a 20th-Century US linguist and philologist, expounded the principle of least effort. He predicted that short and simple words would be the most frequent – and he was right.

The second reason is that ‘the’ lies at the heart of English grammar, having a function rather than a meaning. Words are split into two categories: expressions with a semantic meaning and functional words like ‘the’, ‘to’, ‘for’, with a job to do. ‘The’ can function in multiple ways. This is typical, explains Gary Thoms, assistant professor in linguistics at New York University: “a super high-usage word will often develop a real flexibility”, with different subtle uses that make it hard to define. Helping us understand what is being referred to, ‘the’ makes sense of nouns as a subject or an object. So even someone with a rudimentary grasp of English can tell the difference between ‘I ate an apple’ and ‘I ate the apple’.

But although ‘the’ has no meaning in itself, “it seems to be able to do things in subtle and miraculous ways,” says Michael Rosen, poet and author. Consider the difference between ‘he scored a goal’ and ‘he scored the goal’. The inclusion of ‘the’ immediately signals something important about that goal. Perhaps it was the only one of the match? Or maybe it was the clincher that won the league? Context very often determines sense.

There are many exceptions regarding the use of the definite article, for example in relation to proper nouns. We wouldn’t expect someone to say ‘the Jonathan’ but it’s not incorrect to say ‘you’re not the Jonathan I thought you were’. 

 

This could lead to a belief that ‘the’ is a workhorse of English; functional but boring. Yet Rosen rejects that view. While primary school children are taught to use ‘wow’ words, choosing ‘exclaimed’ rather than ‘said’, he doesn’t think any word has more or less ‘wow’ factor than any other; it all depends on how it’s used. “Power in language comes from context... ‘the’ can be a wow word,” he says.

This simplest of words can be used for dramatic effect. At the start of Hamlet, a guard’s utterance of ‘Long live the King’ is soon followed by the apparition of the ghost: ‘Looks it not like the King?’ Who, the audience wonders, does ‘the’ refer to? The living King or a dead King? This kind of ambiguity is the kind of ‘hook’ that writers use to make us quizzical, a bit uneasy even. “‘The’ is doing a lot of work here,” says Rosen.

Deeper meaning


‘The’ can even have philosophical implications.

‘The’ adds substance to phrases like ‘the man in the Moon’, implying that he exists (Credit: Alamy)

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote a paper in 1905 called On Denoting, all about the definite article. Russell put forward a theory of definite descriptions. He thought it intolerable that phrases like ‘the man in the Moon’ were used as though they actually existed. He wanted to revise the surface grammar of English, as it was misleading and “not a good guide to the logic of the language”, explains Smith. This topic has been argued about, in a philosophical context, ever since. “Despite the simplicity of the word,” observes Thoms, “it’s been evading definition in a very precise way for a long time.”

Atlantic divide

Even within the language, there are subtle differences in how ‘the’ is used in British and American English, such as when talking about playing a musical instrument. An American might be more likely to say ‘I play guitar’ whereas a British person might opt for ‘I play the guitar’. But there are some instruments where both nationalities might happily omit ‘the’, such as ‘I play drums’. Equally the same person might interchangeably refer to their playing of any given instrument with or without the definite article – because both are correct and both make sense.

Americans are more likely to say ‘I play piano’, whereas a Brit would probably say ‘I play the piano’ (Credit: Alamy)

And yet, keeping with the musical vibe, there’s a subtle difference in meaning of ‘the’ in the phrases ‘I play the piano’ and ‘I clean the piano’. We instinctively understand the former to mean the piano playing is general and not restricted to one instrument, and yet in the latter we know that it is one specific piano that is being rendered spick and span.

Culpeper says ‘the’ occurs about a third less in spoken language. Though of course whether it is used more frequently in text or speech depends on the subject in question. A more personal, emotional topic might have fewer instances of ‘the’ than something more formal. ‘The’ appears most frequently in academic prose, offering a useful word when imparting information – whether it’s scientific papers, legal contracts or the news. Novels use ‘the’ least, partly because they have conversation embedded in them.

 Origins

We don’t know exactly where ‘the’ comes from – it doesn’t have a precise ancestor in Old English grammar. The Anglo Saxons didn’t say ‘the’, but had their own versions.

‘The’ deserves to be celebrated. The three-letter word punches well above its weight in terms of impact and breadth of contextual meaning. It can be political, it can be dramatic – it can even bring non-existent concepts into being.

You can hear more about ‘the’ on BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth: The Most Powerful Word.

Friday, August 28, 2020

104. Conceptual objects, mind maps, and cultural schemata

It is my firm belief that following the thread of June’s post on cognitive schemata will be useful insofar as it helps to outline oral- and written-text production. And that is because there is something left without clear insight: the linguistic elements we can hold in mind at any one time. Again, we’re moving within the range of knowledge and ability, which I’m going to comment on below.                                                                                                                     

Google images

What has been accepted in late 20th- and early 21st- teaching/learning research is the inability of our brain to sustain short-term memory by pouring into human communication all the bulk of linguistic items we know related to a script - for example, buying. When it comes to performing, the ideal scenario considers “at most seven plus or minus two” conceptual objects (D'Andrade, 1987) that can be simultaneously and rapidly handled. But this may be misleading: a conceptual object is more often than not a package belonging to a cultural schema[1].

For just consider: as soon as we think, say, or write “buying”, the very semantic load of the verb activates brain paths which take for granted other, indispensable conceptual objects. There must be someone (a purchaser) who buys something from someone (else); the latter someone has the object (and is willing to sell it); buying infers transaction through money which, in turn, sends the mind to the (potential) purchaser, seller, merchandise, price, value /worth, interaction between the purchaser and the seller, communication of the offer to buy, the acceptance of sale, the transfer of ownership, plus as varied concepts as bargaining, lending, renting, leasing, gypping, salesmanship, bids, counter-offers, profit making, stores, ads, and a final agreement (see also Fillmore, 1977). 

Each and every linguistic element comes with its own package of semantic and syntactic rules. Without going any further, what happens when a Spanish speaker wants to express comprarle algo a alguien? Who is that alguien? – the person who owns the object or the one for whom you pay to get that particular thing? People buy something from someone else (i.e., the seller) for someone else (i.e., a third party; to their benefit, for them to enjoy). How easy is it to get it all wrong? For (much) more information, let me refer you back to blog post 59:

http://challengingmyths.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-bit-of-grammaring.html

Norwegian humour: This shop window sells well
by Daniel Duma

Things are by far more complex. At the other end of the spectrum, a native or a competent speaker of English will shake their head in disbelief by saying “I don’t buy that” when they are told something that, for them, is just an absurdity. Why buy? Well, buying and selling is commonplace in the English cultural schema (even more so, presumably, in AmE than in BrE), to such an extent that one can find semantic restructuring like, for instance the book sells well and this shop window sells well. That is why looking up information is indispensable when we customise the mind map that we need for production.  

D’Andrade’s (1987) article is as valuable today as it was more than thirty years ago – even more so, given that English is here to stay. What Verspoor’s (1996) schema[2] below suggests is that, all things considered, perception brings on interpretation of what we see, hear and/or sense, whereas knowledge and belief are created within the mind. What still remains problematic (or difficult to define) is the origin and the cause of feelings, emotions, and desires. Nevertheless, intentions and resolutions appear as directly caused only from within. 

How would you interpret the arrows drawn between the six concepts above? Could you come up with an example?

What seems to be undeniable is that a mental causation chain is always in place: a stimulus (mediated by cognition) triggers a mental state. A previous intention results in action. How does the expression change in each of the sentences below?

John moved the table. || John made the table move. || John wanted to move the table.

A directly perceived stimulus may be reported as follows:

The table moved. || I saw the table move. || I saw John move the table. || I believed the table to have moved.

The point I’m trying to make is this: whatever idea we want to express will emerge from our mind taking a material form, i.e., a linguistic shape made from words and phrases, all of which will be there – in our discourse – as a function of our knowledge and ability.


[1] By now it is quite clear that the English and the Spanish cultural schemata are far from coinciding – perhaps only in what may be called “universals”.

[2] Reproduced from “The story of -ing: a subjective perspective” In The Construal of Space in Language and thought. In Pütz & Dirven (eds), pp. 417-454.

Saturday, June 06, 2020

103. There’s a Lot More Coming Your Way

Without a shadow of a doubt, the new normality we’re supposed to go back to has quite a few twists and turns. Great uncertainties, along with great possibilities, surround our daily tasks. By now, many of the readers of this blog would agree that the uncertainties must be clarified, while the range of possibilities must be explored.                         Google Images

“Count your blessings”, the saying goes. If you are one of those who visit the blog often enough, you must have already realized that glimpses of a way of thinking can be detected between the lines and within the strings of words that make up each text, pointing to self-reliance, freedom and independence. Entrenched expressions such as “when there’s a will there’s a way” represent, at the same time, encouragement and an underlying statement: seize the moment.

“If not now, then when?”

As I said in previous posts, some of the nooks and crannies of resonating with the English speaker’s worldview lie in a mental model of the mind, poured – so to speak – into the competent speaker’s expression. Just as an example, have a look at this excerpt from Roy D’Andrade[1]in which the author speaks of cognitive schemas. These are subject to constraints on human short-term memory, which limit the elements we can hold in mind at any one time. Even if we know a large number of specific terms related, say, with the scenario of buying and selling, those elements are highly unlikely to come in bulk to our mind when we are asked to perform (i.e., to produce oral or written text):

With this in mind, and eager to know more and more, there’s that new “lot” coming your way!


Google Images

[1] D’Andrade, R. A Folk Model of the Mind. In Cultural Models in Language and Thought. Cambridge University Press, 1987

Thursday, April 23, 2020

102. A Hymn to Love


Give me a word – just one word – and I’ll tell you why you’re here
You’ve been into learning English for quite some time, so there must be something in particular that fuels your curiosity. What is it?

By now you already know that words never mean what they seem to mean: just change the structure in which you “insert” a word, and the meaning will slightly – or dramatically – change.
(1) Take a few seconds to think deeply about a word, or a collocation which is meaningful to you.
(2) When you have finished, put pen on paper and write a few things about it, such as: 
(a) What you like about it (sound, meaning, spelling, usefulness);
(b) What it evokes in your mind (connotations);
(c) What relationship(s) may have with your life – is it the essence, a leitmotif, a recurrent idea?
·      World Book Day
Of all the anniversaries, this is closely linked to knowledge.
(3) Why was the 23rd of April been chosen as the day for celebration of books? 
(4) Name the title of a book you most cherish. Could you summarize its topic in no more than two minutes? What did you learn from it?
·      Survival of the Printed book
(5) What aspects of the modern world threaten their survival? Name at least three inventions and activities that may turn the printed book into a museum sample. What, if anything, can be done to help them survive? All comments are welcome.

For the good old times: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18